As he intended to dine in the hotel, he changed into a dinner jacket. At half past seven Kenneth Dorne came to see him. His manner slithered about between resentment, shamefacedness and sheer funk.

Alleyn ran through Kenneth’s record as supplied by Fox and asked him if it was substantially correct. Kenneth said he supposed so. “Anyway,” he said, “you’ve made up your mind so there’s no point in saying it’s not.”

“None whatever.”

“Very well, then. What’s the object in my coming here?”

“Briefly: this. I want to know what happened between you and Mailer by the Apollo, yesterday. No,” Alleyn said and lifted a hand, “don’t lie again. You’ll do yourself a lot of damage if you persist. You met him by arrangement to collect your supply of heroin and cocaine. But you also wanted to find out whether he’d been successful in blackmailing Lady Braceley on your behalf. Perhaps that’s a harsh way of putting it but it’s substantially what happened. You had got yourself into trouble in Perugia, Mailer had purported to get you out of it. Knowing your talent for sponging on your aunt he came again with completely false stories of police activity and the necessity for bribery on a large scale. He told you, no doubt, that Lady Braceley had promised to comply. Do you deny any of this?”

“No comment,” said Kenneth.

“My sole concern is to get a statement from you about your parting with Mailer and where he went — in what direction — when he left you. Your wits,” Alleyn said, “are not so befuddled with narcotics that you don’t understand me. This man has not only made a fool of you and robbed your aunt. He has murdered an old woman. I suppose you know the penalty for comforting and abetting a murderer.”

“Is this Roman law?” Kenneth sneered in a shaking voice.

“You’re a British subject. So is Mailer. You don’t want him caught, do you? You’re afraid of exposure.”

“No!”

“Then tell me where he went when he left you.”

At first Alleyn thought Kenneth was going to break down, then that he was going to refuse, but he did neither of these things. He gazed dolefully at Alleyn for several seconds and appeared to gain some kind of initiative. He folded his white hands over his mouth, bit softly at his fingers and put his head on one side. At last he talked and having begun seemed to find a release in doing so.

He said that when Mailer had fixed him up with his supply of heroin and cocaine he had “had himself a pop.” He carried his own syringe and Mailer, guessing he would be avid for it, had provided him with an ampoule of water and helped him. He adjusted the tourniquet, using Kenneth’s scarf for the purpose. “Seb,” Kenneth said, “is fabulous — you know — it’s not easy till you get the knack. Finding the right spot. So he cooked up and fixed me, there and then, and I felt fantastic. He said I’d better carry on with the party.”

They had walked together round the end of the old church and arrived at the iron stairway. Mailer had gone down the stairway into the insula with Kenneth but instead of entering the Mithraeum had continued along the cloister in the direction of the well.

Kenneth, saturated, Alleyn gathered, in a rising flood of well-being, had paused at the entry into the Mithraeum and idly watched Mailer. Having got so far in his narrative he ran the tip of his tongue round his lips and eyeing Alleyn with what actually seemed to be a kind of relish, said:

“Surprise, surprise.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw it. Again. The same as what the Jason dolly saw. You know. The shadow.”

“Violetta’s.”

“Across the thing. You know. The sarcophagus.”

“Then you saw her?”

“No, I didn’t. I suppose he was between. I don’t know. I was high. There’s a kind of buttress thing juts out. Anyway I was high.”

“So high, perhaps, that you imagined the whole thing.”

“No,” Kenneth said loudly. “No.”

“And then?”

“I went into that marvellous place. The temple of whatever. There you were. All of you. On about the god. And the great grinning Baroness lining us up for a team photograph. And all the time,” Kenneth said excitedly, “all the time just round the corner, Seb was strangling the postcard woman. Wouldn’t it send you!” He burst out laughing.

Alleyn looked at him. “You can’t always have been as bad as this,” he said. “Or are you simply a born, stupid, unalterable monster. How big a hand has Mailer taken, with his H. and C. and his thoughtful ever-ready ampoule of distilled water, in the making of the product?”

Kenneth’s smile still hung about his mouth even as he began to whimper.

“Shut up,” Alleyn said mildly. “Don’t do that. Pull yourself together if you can.”

“I’m a spoilt boy. I know that. I never had a chance. I was spoilt.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three. Someone like you could have helped me. Truly.”

“Did you get any idea of why Mailer didn’t go into the Mithraeum with you? Was he expecting to meet the woman?”

“No. No, I’m sure he wasn’t,” Kenneth said eagerly, gazing at Alleyn. “I’m telling the truth,” he added with a dreadful imitation of a chidden little boy. “I’m trying to be good. And I’ll tell you something else. To show.”

“Go on.”

“He told me why he wouldn’t come in.”

“Why?”

“He had a date. With someone else.”

“Who?”

“He didn’t say. I’d tell you if I knew. He didn’t say. But he had a date. Down there in that place. He told me.”

The telephone rang.

When Alleyn answered it he received an oddly familiar sensation: an open silence broken by the distant and hollow closure of a door, a suggestion of space and emptiness. He was not altogether surprised when a rich voice asked: “Would this be Mr. Alleyn?”

“It would, Father.”

“You mentioned this morning where you were to be found. Are you alone, now?”

“No.”

“No. Well, we’ll say no more under that heading. I’ve called upon you, Mr. Alleyn, in preference to anybody else, on account of a matter that has arisen. It may be no great matter and it may be all to the contrary.”

“Yes?”

“If it’s not putting too much upon you I’d be very greatly obliged if you’d be kind enough to look in at the basilica.”

“Of course. Is it—?”

“Well, now, it may be. It may be and then again it may not and to tell you the truth I’m loath to call down a great concourse of the pollis upon me and then it turning out to be a rat.”

“A rat, Father Denys?”

“Or rats. The latter is more like it. Over the head of the strenth.”

“The strength, did you say?”

“I did that. The strenth. Of the aroma.”

“I’ll be with you,” Alleyn said, “in fifteen minutes.”

His professional homicide kit was in the bottom of his wardrobe. He took it with him.

8

Re-appearance of Sebastian Mailer

San Tommaso in Pallaria looked different after sunset. Its façade was dark against a darkening sky and its windows only faintly illuminated from within. Its entrance where Violetta had cursed Sebastian Mailer was quite given over to shadows and its doors were shut.

Alleyn was wondering how he would get in when Father Denys moved out of the shadows.

“Good evening and God bless you,” he said.

He opened a little pass door in the great entry and led the way in.

The smell of incense and hot candles seemed more noticeable in the dark. Galaxies of small flaming spearheads burned motionless before the saints. A ruby lamp glowed above the high altar. It was a place fully occupied within itself. A positive place.

Brother Dominic came out of the sacristy and they walked into the vestibule with its shrouded stalls. The lights were on in there and it felt stuffy.

“It’s like enough a fool’s errand I’ve brought you on and you maybe not eaten yet,” said Father Denys. “I may tell you it’s not been done without the authority of my superior.”